【正文】 nd Bar Harbor, stimulating his imagination with names like Googins Ledge, Blunts Pond, Hio Hill and Burnt Porcupine, Long Porcupine, Sheep Porcupine and Bald Porcupine islands.4From Cunctator’s day until this century, the art of postponement had been virtually a monopoly of the military (“Hurry up and wait”), diplomacy and the law. In former times, a British proconsul faced with a native uprising could fortably ruminate about the situation with Singapore Sling in hand. Blessedly, he had no nattering Telex to order in machine guns and fresh troops. . general as late as World War II could agree with his enemy counterpart to take a sporting day off, loot the villagers’ chickens and wine and go back to battle a day later. Lawyers are among the world’s most addicted postponers. According to Frank Nathan, a nonpostponing Beverly Hills insurance salesman, “The number of attorneys who die without a will is amazing.”5Even where there is no will, there is a way. There is a difference, of course, between chronic procrastination and purposeful postponement, particularly in the higher echelons of business. Corporate dynamics encourage the caution that breeds delay, says Richard Manderbach, Bank of America group vice president. He notes that speedy action can be embarrassing or extremely costly. The data explosion fortifies those seeking excuses for inaction – another report to be read, another authority to be consulted. “There is always,” says Manderbach, “a delicate edge between having enough information and too much.”6His point is well taken. Bureaucratization, which flourished amid the growing burdens of government and the great plexity of society, was designed to smother policymakers in blankets of legalism, promise and reappraisal – and thereby prevent hasty decisions from being made. The centralization of government that led to Watergate has spread to economic institutions and beyond, making procrastination a worldwide way of life. Many languages are studded with phrases that refer to putting things off – from the Spanish manana to the Arabic bukrafil mishmish (literally “tomorrow in apricots,” more loosely “l(fā)eave it for the soft spring weather when the apricots are blooming”).7Academe also takes high honors in procrastination. Bernard Sklar, a University of Southern California sociologist who churns out three to five pages of writing a day, admits that “many of my friends go through agonies when they face a blank page. There are all sorts of rationalizations: the pressure of teaching, responsibilities at home, checking out the latest book, looking up another footnote.”8Psychologists maintain that the most assiduous procrastinators are women, though many psychologists are (at $50 — plus an hour) pretty good delayers themselves. Dr. Ralph Greenson, a . professor of clinical psychiatry (and Marilyn Monroe’s onetime shrink), takes a fairly gentle view of procrastination. “To many people,” he says, “doing something, confronting, is the moment of truth. All frightened people will then avoid the moment of truth entirely, or evade or postpone it until the last possible moment.” To Georgia State Psychologist Joen Fagan, however, procrastination may be a kind of subliminal way of sorting the important from the trivial. “When I drag my feet, there’s usually some reason,” says Fagan. “I feel it, but I don’t yet know the real reason.”9In fact, there is a long and honorable history of procrastination to suggest that many ideas and decisions may well improve if postponed. It is something of a truism that to put off making a decision is itself a decision. The parliamentary process is essentially a system of delay and deliberation. So, for that matter, is the creation of a great painting, or an entr233。 I knew he had just left his last patient of the day. He was close to 80, but he still carried a full case load, still acted as director of a large foundation, still loved to escape to the golf course whenever he could.4By the time he came over and sat beside me, the waiter had brought his invariable bottle of ale. I had not seen him for several months, but he seemed as indestructible as ever. “Well, young man,” he said without preliminary, “what’s troubling you?”5I had long since ceased to be surprised at his perceptiveness. So I proceeded to tell him, at some length, just what was bothering me. With a kind of melancholy pride, I tried to be very honest. I blamed no one else for my disappointment, only myself. I analyzed the whole thing, all the bad judgments, the false moves. I went on for perhaps 15 minutes, while the Old Man sipped his ale in silence.6When I finished, he put down his glass. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go back to my office.”7“Your office? Did you forget something?”8“No,” he said mildly. “I want your reaction to something. That’s all.”9A chill rain was beginning to fall outside, but his office was warm and fortable and familiar: booklined walls, long leather couch, signed photograph of Sigmund Freud, tape recorder by the window. His secretary had gone home. We were alone.10The Old Man took a tape from a flat cardboard box and fitted it onto the machine. “On this tape,” he said, “are three short recordings made by three persons who came to me for help. They are not identified, of course. I want you to listen to the recordings and see if you can pick out the twoword phrase that is the mon denominator in all three cases.” He smiled. “Don’t look so puzzled. I have my reasons.”11What the owners of the voices on the tape had in mon, it seemed to me, was unhappiness. The man who spoke first evidently had suffered some kind of business loss or failure。 he berated himself for not having worked harder, for not having looked ahead. The woman who spoke next had never married because of a sense of obligation to her widowed mother。e, or a book, or a building like Blenheim Palace, which took the Duck of Marlborough’s architects and laborers 15years to construct. In the process, t